Mayari Adventures:
by JohnMcKinnon
Summary: Summary: 300 years after the events of GT, the Earth finds itself vulnerable after most of its strongest fighters either leave the planet, or are killed. Mayari and Althea are the strongest humans left, and they must protect it from opportunistic alien invaders while trying to train a new generation of human warriors.
1. Chapter 1: The Saiyans Attack

On a bright, summer's day, a bulky, brown-skinned woman named Mayari G. Smith flew above farmer's fields and grassy meadows. She was wearing a grey t-shirt, with black shorts that went past her knees. Her shoulder-length brown hair flapped around wildly in the wind as she flew toward her destination.

It was the first warm day of the year, and she could feel the sun's heat on the back of her neck. She could smell freshly mowed grass coming from one of the fields below. She took a deep breath of it.

"I'm so glad summer's finally here!" she exclaimed.

Her best friend, who was flying beside her, agreed. "We can finally train without our jackets!"

Althea was a thinner, older woman with a more Asian appearance. But both of them came from the same country, and had immigrated to Zeballos Village on the same day twenty years before. They had been best friends ever since.

Spotting an isolated cabin on top of a large, green hill, Althea smiled. "That's it!"

"Let's go!" Mayari replied, veering downward. They landed in front of the cabin, and dumped their gym bags on the ground, which was nice and dry for the first time in months. Althea took off her glasses and tucked them into the side of her bag. Her vision was blurry after doing this, but she knew a technique to temporarily allow her to see clearly without attaching anything to her head.

She concentrated her energy momentarily and transformed the shape of her eyes so they became smooth, and the correct curvature to see. It created a slight strain on her eyes, so it wasn't good to keep them like this all the time, but for sparring sessions, it was better than worrying about some fragile glasses that could be destroyed with one punch.

"Use the kaioken today," Mayari told her, as she put on a pair of thin, white gloves. "That way we can fight at the same level."

"Sure thing!" she replied. "You want to fight in the air, or on the ground?"

"Definitely the ground," Mayari answered. "It's hardly ever dry enough for me to practice my footwork."

The climate they lived in was a rather wet one, with weather that was overcast and rainy on nearly half of the days of the year. It had led to Mayari, and other fighters in the area tending to emphasize aerial combat in their training regimens.

Both women began some light stretching, and Althea asked, "How are your action figures selling? I saw them in this week's flyer."

Mayari shrugged. "I don't know. I usually let Ethan take care of that stuff."

The two of them were now ready to begin. They positioned themselves in front of each other, and Mayari took a defensive posture.

Althea shut her eyes and called out, "Kaioken ATT-A-A-A-ACK!"

An energy aura erupted out of the woman. The strain on her body from a double kaioken was minor, and she could sustain it for long periods of time. Her aura was clear, only noticeable from the distortions it made in objects behind her.

"In that form, Althea's power is equal to mine," Mayari thought. "I can't make any mistakes."

Mayari braced herself as her friend began to advance. The figure flying toward her hollered with a fist clenched behind her back. Just as she was getting close though, Mayari sensed a strong energy coming at her from the side. She looked, and saw a blue energy ball hurtling toward her.

Shocked, the woman managed to leap away from the attack. The energy ball exploded beside her, and Mayari was blown away by it. She managed to keep her balance though, and landed on her feet several metres from the explosion. She looked at Althea, who had also dodged the attack, and was standing on the other side of the crater.

The crater though! The ground they had been standing on had been churned up, and dirt was splattered all over the place, leaving a brown circle ten metres across! Mayari heard some laughter though, and turned toward it. She saw three people at the bottom of the hill, and they began to fly toward her.

"Saiyans," she realized, seeing their tails.

She and Althea got back together, and the three saiyan-human hybrids flew up to them.

"Hey, what was that about!" Mayari shouted at them. "That blast was too strong without giving us any warning! We could have been hurt!"

"It might have even killed you!" the closest saiyan said. "I'm actually surprised that you survived!"

This made Mayari very uneasy, and she took a cautious stance against them.

"Were you trying to kill us?" Althea demanded. "We never did anything to you! I've never even seen you before!"

The saiyans chuckled sadistically, and a second saiyan responded. "You're human. That's all we need to know!"

"Get them!"

The three saiyans attacked, and Mayari instinctively threw her arms up to block punches from two opponents at the same time.

Whack! Whack!

"Not too strong," the human reckoned, "typical saiyan strength."

She slowly retreated while moving her arms quickly to block a blur of punches coming her way. A glance sideways showed her that Althea was doing alright too. But her weaker partner soon took a hit to the stomach.

Althea felt a shallow pulse of pain, but nothing too bad.

"That's it," she grunted. "I don't know who you are, but I'm fighting back! HAAAAA!"

She slammed her fist into her opponent's belly so hard that it almost tore right through him. The saiyan's eyes bulged wide open and his jaw hung unnaturally. Althea continued to press her fist in, and the injured victim stumbled backward weakly, barely managing to dislodge himself from Althea's arm. He immediately hurled up a torrent of blood, and Althea was overtaken by guilt.

"I'm sorry!" she said sincerely. "Did I hit to you too hard?"

A short distance away, Mayari was glad to see her friend was okay. She activated her kaioken and kicked one opponent hard enough to send him staggering back. She dodged a punch, then kicked her second opponent, sending him flying away. She raced past the saiyan, and kicked him back with so much force he went flying the other way, and crashed into his friend. She then threw them both to the ground beside the third saiyan, who had now sunk to his hands and knees, coughing weakly.

"No way!" one saiyan exclaimed.

"How could they be so strong?"

Mayari and Althea powered down, and stood in front of the attackers. Mayari shifted from feeling concerned to being angry again.

"Why did you attack us?" she demanded to know. "You had no right to come after us like that!"

"On the orders of King Wasabi," one of them answered.

Mayari gasped. "King Wasabi?"

The three saiyans picked themselves up, and their confidence seemed to return.

"That's right. On his orders, we're going to kill the two of you today, even if you are stronger than we expected."

"You should be careful," Althea warned sternly. "Me and my friend here haven't shown you our full power yet."

"Neither have we," the saiyan replied with a smile. He held up an energy orb in his hand, and threw it into the air.

Althea was confused by this, and didn't know why the orb was being thrown into the air. But Mayari felt her stomach tighten anxiously, and she backed away.

"This is dangerous," she thought. "Althea and I together could handle one ape if we worked together, but three at once... it's going to depend on what their power levels are."

The saiyans looked up at the energy orb in the sky, and they began to grow fur on their bodies quickly.

The saiyans laughed.

"The false moon is working!" one exclaimed.

"Don't forget to take off any clothes that can't stretch."

They quickly began removing garments as their bodies grew larger.

Althea became horrified as she watched the creatures begin to tower over her. "T-They're becoming Oozarus!"

Mayari shouted out to her. "Althea! Get back! You're standing too close!"

She leaped backward until she was standing with her ally. The saiyans continued to grow, taking on the appearance of gigantic apes wearing boxers, which began to look more like briefs as the creatures got bigger and bigger.

"But how did they do that?" Althea wondered. "It's the middle of the day! There's no moon out!"

"Saiyans can create false moons to achieve their transformation," Mayari explained. "But I haven't heard of any saiyans using that technique since Vegeta."

"But, what are we gonna do?"

The saiyans reached their full size, and stared down at the tiny humans below, their shadows covering them. Althea was terrified, but Mayari felt their chances were still pretty good.

"Go up to full power," she instructed. "Their energy levels may have multiplied by ten, but they were pretty weak to begin with, so we might still be able to handle them."

This made Althea feel a little better. If her friend wasn't scared yet, she wouldn't be either.

Both of them shouted together. "Triple-kaioken!"

Their bodies heated right up, and their power auras turned red as their energy levels climbed up to the highest they could handle.

A saiyan slammed his fist into the ground, and the two humans split up to dodge the attack. The ground shook, and a cloud of dust was kicked up that engulfed the two women. They both emerged, only to find themselves having to dodge another attack.

The three giant saiyans gathered around the two nervous humans and began to pummel them with punches, smashing down from above. Mayari and Althea were able to block the attacks, thanks to their triple-kaiokens, but there was no telling how long they would be able to keep it up.

Mayari's confidence was growing though.

"Don't let their size intimidate you," she said, still blocking punches. "These saiyans are strong, but we can handle them."

Just as she finished saying that though, Althea got kicked from below, and then punched hard enough that she went flying away. Another saiyan leaped into the air to smash her down, but Mayari flew up and kicked him in the leg hard enough to make him stop.

Both women's kaiokens wore off, but they got a break as the saiyans regrouped cautiously.

"She actually hurt me!" The Oozaru complained, nursing his leg.

"They're unbelievably fast!"

Althea was worried too, however. "They're too strong! As soon as our kaiokens wear off, we're sitting ducks against them!"

"Yeah, but they have a weakness too," the confident Mayari replied. "If we change them back to their small form, they'll be defenseless."

An Oozaru snarled at his two enemies. "This is going to be a tough battle, but we're still saiyan warriors! We can destroy even the strongest humans!"

With that, they began to charge forward again.

"Kamehameha!" Althea shouted!

A blue beam of energe charged out of her hands toward the nearest saiyan, but he swung his arm and deflected it. He swung his other arm, and almost hit Althea, but she dodged at the last moment.

Mayari blocked a kick, then a punch, all while charging up a Destructo Disk. She flew around the waist of one of the beasts, and threw the orange disk. It cut off the tail of the giant ape, and he howled in pain.

"AAAAARG!" he screamed, with a mixture of pain and frustration. "How dare you!"

Mayari was no longer concerned about him though, since she knew he couldn't sustain his giant form without his tail. Sure enough, he began to shrink.

Althea and the other saiyans watched as he became a tiny little saiyan again, naked except for his boxers. The two remaining Oozarus became very worried now.

"The strong one knows about our tails!"

"We can still take them! We just have to be careful!"

Mayari smiled at her friend. "Do you see what to do now?"

"Yeah!" Althea answered, smiling too. "That was fantastic!"

Charging up again, the women were the ones to lead off this time. They weaved around the saiyan giants, dodging attacks, and trying to get a good shot at one of their tails. The apes found themselves spinning constantly to keep their butts out of harm's way, and they had trouble launching any attacks of their own due to their caution.

Althea threw a disk that nicked a saiyan's tail, but wasn't enough to cut it off cleanly. The saiyan had become unbalanced in his effort to dodge the hit though, and he tumbled to the ground. Mayari missed with a disk of her own, and Althea had to shoot herself up high to avoid it.

"Sorry!" Mayari called out. Down to a double-kaioken, she took a kick to the face, and went flying away for a moment, but it didn't seem to hurt her that much, as she quickly came back with another disk ready. She charged up to maximum power again, rammed the ape's foot, and sliced off its tail successfully from underneath.

Althea slammed into the last ape's face once, and then again, but she was then slapped away by the giant creature. The saiyan then turned to Mayari, and fired a wide energy beam out of his mouth.

She could see it coming, but her kaiokens had worn off completely. She was instantly filled with dread, knowing that the incoming attack was very powerful.

"Kamehameha!" she cried.

Her beam hit the saiyan's attack, but it wasn't strong enough to stop it. The collision of their blasts was creeping in her direction.

Althea could see that giant ape was unguarded now, focusing all his attention on Mayari.

"This is my chance!"

She powered up another Destructo Disk, only to be kicked by one of the small saiyans. Her shot missed completely.

"Hey!" Althea shouted. "Stay out of this!"

The other small saiyan-human appeared.

"I don't think so!"

Mayari was losing ground. "Althea! Hurry!"

Determined to not let the little saiyan pests stop her, she quickly punched the two of them away, and put her hands in front of her face, forming a diamond shape with her fingers.

"TRI-BEAM!" she hollered.

A blast immediately shot out of her hands and hit the Oozaru's tail with such overwhelming force that part of it vaporized off!

The monster screamed in pain, and when it did, it accidentally angled its face away from Mayari, sending its Break Cannon off in the wrong direction. The saiyan took a Kamehameha to the face, and then transformed back into his humanoid form.

Mayari was left floating in the air with wide eyes, feeling lingering terror. "Wow! That was too close!"

Althea flew over to her. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. I didn't think you would have time to power up another attack!"

"The Tri-Beam is very fast."

Mayari looked down at the three shrunken saiyans below, who were scrambling to put their clothes back on. She felt a surge of fury at the three of them. Clenching her fists, she said, "Let's finish them!"

"Finish them?" Althea echoed nervously. "I don't want to kill them!"

Mayari's triple-kaioken was back on though, and she flew down so fast it looked like instant teleportation.

"Hyaaa! Haa! Haa!" She yelled, while pounding the three weaklings.

All of their faces looked overwhelmed with pain and terror as the enraged woman punched, kicked, and elbowed the three of them rapidly until they were completely out of energy, bloodied, and close to death. Satisfied, she ended her assault.

Althea landed at her side. "Please, go easy on them!"

"I could have been seriously hurt by that last attack," Mayari retorted. "I would have survived it of course, but I still would have been really hurt!"

"But we still don't know why they attacked us!"

This made Mayari calm down a bit. She let her power vanish, and said, "You're right."

She took a few steps toward the injured saiyans, and they whimpered in fear, pushing their arms against the ground to try to get away, but they were all too weakened to do so now.

"You jerks attacked two innocent women you'd never even met before! I would be within my rights to kill all three of you right now!"

Their whimpering got louder. "Please don't hurt us!" one of them cried.

The stern woman continued. "But I'll let you go if you tell me why King Wasabi wants us dead."

"Okay! Okay! We'll tell you!"

The saiyan with the burnt face began to explain. "The leader of the saiyans, King Wasabi, has been trying to return us to our ancient roots, and we have all gathered under his leadership in one region of the world."

"The fundamentalist movement," Mayari remembered. "I've never liked it."

"Well, Wasabi believes it is necessary for saiyans to rediscover who they really are, and learn how to become super-saiyans again. But having a small city isn't enough for us. For saiyans to reclaim our former glory, and become a race that is feared across the universe, we need to have a planet of our own, and the Earth seems like a natural place to start."

"That's horrible!" Althea exclaimed. "Humans and saiyans have coexisted for hundreds of years! We're friends!"

"Well, not any more! Our King has identified the strongest humans, and has sent teams of warriors to kill each one, in a co-ordinated war. Once the strong humans are gone, the remaining weaklings will be at our mercy!"

"You mean other humans are being attacked like we were?" Althea asked.

The saiyan nodded.

Wanting to verify this, Mayari shut her eyes, and began to sense the energy of the world. Sure enough, she detected large powers flaring up all over. Major battles were taking place everywhere, and Mayari feared that the other humans, who were all weaker than her, wouldn't know to cut off the saiyans' tails, or be quick enough to succeed at it.

"They're all going to die," she said. "Or most of them, anyway. We were the lucky ones."

"Indeed," one of the other saiyans said. "We underestimated your power. And you were one of the few humans that is familiar with Oozarus."

Althea was sensing it all too, and was very upset by what she felt. "They're too far away for us to help in time!"

Mayari looked at the defeated saiyans before her sternly. "What you and your friends are doing is cowardly betrayal. You have forgotten what your ancestors once knew about the true source of a saiyan's power. But there's nothing I can do about it. Get out of my sight, and don't ever bother us again."

Feeling both relieved and ashamed, the three saiyans picked themselves up and flew away slowly, unable to get high off the ground or achieve much speed.

Mayari shot them one last disgusted look before turning to Althea, and switching her mindset to the bigger picture. "I'm going to stop the saiyan forces."

Althea felt grim about the scale of the challenge, but she responded, "I'll go with you."

They launched themselves into the air and flew away. Behind them was mess of craters on top of craters where their cabin used to be. Brown scars were left where there had once been grass. The smouldering remains of energy blasts could be seen on the horizon. The result of a battle against Oozarus was truly horrific, but it was just a taste of what was happening in dozens of places all over the world.

* * *

Power Levels:

Mayari (Triple-kaioken): 150,000

Althea (Triple-kaioken): 75,000

Saiyans (Oozaru form): 90,000 each


	2. Chapter 2: The Scramble

Despite the urgency of the situation, Mayari and Althea knew they couldn't just charge into battle unprepared. They headed toward Althea's home to gather supplies, and come up with a plan. As they flew across the sky, they paid attention to the energy signals around them.

In all the battles that were taking place, the pattern was the same. One or two saiyans would target one human, usually going Oozaru to compete with the tough fighters they were attacking. The energy levels would surge for a few minutes, and then the human's would fade, eventually disappearing.

Mayari felt horrible, but there was nothing she could do for them at the moment. "They're already lost," she thought. "All I can really hope to do is protect the ordinary humans from the next wave of saiyans. Even if I succeed in doing that, today is still a tragedy."

Fortunately, Althea's house wasn't too far away, and they arrived quickly. She lived in a beautiful mansion with four cars, a huge garden, and her own personal gym. It was modest compared with Mayari's even bigger mansion, but Althea only ever came in second place in the big tournaments, earning less prize money.

There was no time to think about that at the moment though, as they raced through the mansion gathering supplies. Althea ran to her garden and quickly harvested her sensu beans. She had learned to grow them a long time ago, when Mayari had discovered their amazing ability to heal wounds and regenerate energy. Most humans relied on healing chambers and energy drinks, but they couldn't do as good a job as the beans that Althea was collecting.

"Ten," she counted. "I hope that's enough for us to stop all the saiyans in the world."

As she was putting them in a bag, a tall, Caucasian man came out wearing a blue button-up shirt, black pants, and thick glasses on his head. "Honey?" he asked. "Is that you?"

"Oh, hi Liam," she replied, attempting to sound casual.

"I thought you were with Mayari today for training."

Her eyes darted sideways. "Um, we finished."

"Already? It's only been twenty minutes since you left."

Althea wasn't looking forward to telling him what was happening, but he needed to know. "Look, right now, we're all in big danger. Saiyans have started attacking people all over the world, including me and Mayari. We were lucky to escape alive. Right now, I need you to go to the bomb shelter."

"Is that what all the explosions and earthquakes are about?" he asked. "It's all over the news right now."

"Yes, probably. Right now, the saiyans are only attacking powerful fighters, but I'm worried they'll go after everyone else soon. That's why you need to hide."

"But what about you?"

"I'm going to fight them."

* * *

Meanwhile, Mayari had grabbed another bag, and filled it with some drinks and food. She then shut her eyes and sought out her husband's energy signal. She found it at his office, where she expected it to be, and she used her psychic abilities to contact him.

"Ethan … Ethan, can you hear me?"

"Whoa! Mayari, is that you?" He was sitting at his desk, wearing a suit and tie with a half-typed email on his computer screen.

"Yes. You're in danger. Saiyans are attacking the Earth."

"What's that?" he said. "I didn't pick that up."

Mayari rolled her eyes. She had taught her husband how to use telepathy, but he wasn't very good it.

"You're in danger! Humans are being killed all around the world!"

"Hang on a minute," he replied.

She waited a few seconds, then she heard her ear-phone ring. She sighed, and poked her ear lobe to activate the small device that was implanted in it. "Hello."

"Sorry Mayari, but I couldn't hear you. What's going on?"

She told him about the saiyan attack, and that he needed to go and hide somewhere while she fights the saiyans.

"You're going to take on all of them?" he asked. "There are thousands of them! Even you can't fight that many opponents!"

It was true, and she knew it. "I'm hoping I won't need to fight them all to save us. I'm going to talk to Althea about our options. But I promise you I won't go out into battle unless I think I can win."

"Okay," Ethan replied cautiously. "I'm going to get out of here and head home. You be careful."

"I will."

She tapped her ear again to end the call, and Althea came in.

"Well, I've got ten sensu beans here, and I found my spare pair of glasses" she announced.

"And I've got our supplies."

"Now we need to figure out what we're going to do."

They sat down at a polished wooden table, and weighed their options.

"There are about 4000 saiyans in the world," Mayari recalled, "with very few of them being anything close to pure-blooded. Their power levels range from 500 to 15,000, multiplying by 10 in the giant form."

"At our level, we can take out hundreds of the weaker ones without breaking a sweat."

"Yes, but that would still leave a few hundred saiyans in the 10,000-plus range. They're split up around the world right now, so we might be able to get some of them isolated, chop off their tails, and kill them without taking much damage."

"That is a real long shot," Althea said with foreboding. "And I don't like the idea of killing all the saiyans. Some day, the universe is going to need them again."

"I know."

They went quiet for a few seconds,dwelling on how limited their options were. "Maybe we should focus on evacuating the Earth," Althea suggested. "If we defeat a small number of saiyans, and announce our intentions, we might be able to evacuate a continent."

"And leave the rest at the Saiyans' mercy?"

"I know," she said with a sigh.

Mayari pounded the table with frustration. "This is all because of that Wasabi guy! He's been obsessed with the saiyan mercenaries during Frieza's rule. It's like he thinks turning themselves into monsters is some glorious ideal they should all be striving toward."

"Yeah, but his little cult has grown to include nearly all the saiyans on Earth now."

"We need to deal with him," Mayari concluded. "We either talk some sense into him, or we defeat him, and take the so-called saiyan throne for ourselves."

"But he lives in the Vegeta city, right in the thick of saiyan territory!"

Mayari thought about it seriously. "We can still do it. The nice thing about modern saiyans is they look nearly identical to humans. We can sneak in, use our strength to smash through a handful of guards, and then deal with their leader directly."

That seemed very risky to Althea, but better than simply fighting them all, and if it worked, it might allow them to spare all of the saiyans' lives, "I don't want anyone else to die today," she thought out loud. "Not on either side."

"Neither do I. But we might have to kill Wasabi in the likely case that he gets stubborn."

Althea reluctantly agreed. "It's the best hope we've got."

"Then we should get moving."

"Let me check on Liam before we go," she said. "I want to make sure he's okay."

"Alright, but don't be long."

Althea zoomed to the bomb shelter at the end of the house in a couple of seconds, and found her husband in the doorway carrying a bulky radio with him. He felt the whoosh of air rushing past him and turned around to see Althea standing behind him, looking gloomy.

"I'm leaving now," she told him.

He nodded quietly. "Do you plan on coming back?"

"Yes, of course!" she answered. "We have a plan, and we're going to execute it. Hopefully I'll be back by the end of the day."

"You were looking really grim there."

"Mayari can do anything," she insisted, trying to look more optimistic "especially if I'm there with her. Now hurry up and get inside. You're not safe exposed like this."

She gave him a quick kiss, and then shut the bulky door on him.

"Goodbye Althea."

"Goodbye," she responded quietly.

She then flew out of the house and met with Mayari in the air. Without a word, they silently flew away.

* * *

Fighting Styles

Mayari likes to fight in the air, and prefers to use energy attacks instead of physical moves. Will often fire Dodon Rays at close range instead of throwing punches.

Althea has focused on moves that can make up for her relatively low power level. She knows how to use the Four Witches technique to grow extra arms, though it doesn't help against giant Oozarus. She also knows the Tri-Beam, Death Beam, and Destructo Disk.


	3. Chapter 3: Counter-Attack

Mayari and Althea suppressed their power levels and flew low to the ground to avoid detection as they made their way west to the saiyan city. The major power levels had all faded by now, and it appeared that the first wave of attacks was over. If any strong humans had survived the attack, they were weak, and probably hiding.

The low energy levels made it easier for Mayari to scan the area for nearby saiyans, and stay out of harm's way. As they continued along, she detected something that she had been looking for.

"Perfect!" she said confidently.

"What's perfect?"

"Follow me, and I'll show you."

She veered to the left a little bit, and headed toward two saiyan energy signatures that were flying toward them. She went down and hid behind a bush. Her partner followed suit.

"You want to attack them?" Althea asked.

"They're two very weak saiyans, both female, like us. If we can ambush them and cut off their tails, we'll be able to blend in with the other saiyans."

Althea liked the idea, and began to grin. "That'll make things a lot easier for us."

"I can see them. Get ready."

The two female saiyans cruised along casually, not looking at anything in particular. Mayari guessed they were going to check out one of the nearby towns to look for some humans to terrorize. Their failure to watch their surroundings would make them easy targets.

At the right moment, the two humans zipped up into the air above the saiyans, grabbed their tails, and pulled them so hard they tore right off! The saiyans screamed in pain and shock, then they fell down to the ground. Mayari ignored them as she tucked her new tail into the back of her pants, making herself look like a saiyan. Althea followed suit. The injured women below were terrified of the humans that had attacked them so suddenly, and they ran for their lives.

"Well, two down," Mayari commented.

"Let's go!"

The two warriors flew along for a while longer, and a group of twelve saiyans approached them from afar. Mayari veered away to avoid them, but the saiyans changed course as well, and were on track to intercept them.

"Are they on to us?" she wondered.

"It might just be a coincidence," Althea hoped.

Soon, they were within visual range of each other. The twelve saiyans flew by wearing light, casual clothing. Mayari and Althea nervously attempted to act naturally, and hoped the torn off tails they had taken were working.

Most of the saiyans completely ignored the two, and the few who did glance at them, shortly turned away, uninterested. They parted ways, and Mayari breathed a sigh of relief.

"These tails paid off almost right away."

She changed course again to get back on track to the saiyan city, and soon saw smoke in the distance. As they got closer, they could see craters, large cracks in the ground, and piles of rubble. The warriors had sinking feelings in her stomachs about what this was. They headed down to investigate.

Sure enough, someone was laying on the ground, in the middle of the destruction.

"It was a saiyan attack," Althea stated.

Mayari nodded, and landed in front of the dead body. It was bloodied, and appeared to largely be flattened except for the head, as if an Oozaru had stomped on it, and squashed almost everything, but not quite all. There was enough left for Mayari to recognize the victim.

"Naima," she said sadly.

"You know her?"

"I fought against her in the Earth Martial Arts Tournament five months ago. She was a pretty strong fighter. That woman was capable of using a times-five kaioken. I had to use a kaioken of my own to counter it."

"It looks like she fought hard," Althea remarked, looking at all the destruction around them. A giant footprint nearby had a small tail in the middle of it, and there was a gash in the ground that stretched out of sight from an energy blast of some sort. Naima had clearly fought well, but it just wasn't enough to save her.

Together, Mayari and Althea put a mound of soil on top of their fellow fighter, and briefly paid respects to her.

"I will make sure that whoever did this to you is taught a lesson," Mayari vowed.

She and her friend then took back to the air.

As they got closer to their destination, the humans found the number of saiyans increasing. It was becoming more difficult to avoid them. But after ten minutes of flying, Mayari spotted a group that was traveling in the same direction as them. Mayari maneuvered behind them, from far enough away to be unnoticeable.

"You want to ambush all of them?" Althea asked.

The warrior shook her head. "Not this time. I just want to listen in on their radio for any news."

The saiyans did indeed have a radio on, but it sounded very quiet from their distance. Althea shut her eyes and concentrated intently on the sound, using her ki to amplify it in her own mind. She was then able to hear what Mayari was already listening to.

An old, female voice came over the airwaves and gave what sounded like a news announcement. "Attention, all saiyans. We have an update about Hayyas, Kukumbar, and Coli, the three saiyans that were sent to attack the two strongest humans. DNA analysis of the tails found at the scene match the missing saiyans. This means that they failed in their mission, and likely fled the scene in shame."

"Shoot," Mayari cursed herself. "We should have hidden those tails. I was too emotional to think of it."

The announcement went on. "Mayari Smith, and Althea Ross are believed to be on the loose, and dangerous. Pictures of them are being uploaded to our data site as I speak. All saiyans are asked to keep an eye out for them. King Wasabi considers them to be the last serious threat to the saiyan plan for world domination."

"Those weaklings!" one of the saiyans remarked. "It was three on two! How could they possibly lose?"

The other saiyans began to jeer, and the two humans veered away discretely.

"Our disguise isn't going to be good enough any more," Althea said. "They'll recognize our faces now."

"We don't have that much further to go," Mayari replied. "Another fifteen minutes of flight ought to do it."

They flew away as fast as they could, racing toward Vegeta city. They were tempted to use kaiokens to speed up their trip, but grudgingly decided that low-power stealth was still the best option. The saiyan patrols got very dense suddenly, and they found themselves unable to avoid coming withing visual range of several saiyan groups, about one every minute.

When they were five minutes away from their goal, a group of six saiyans headed straight toward them, and ordered them to halt.

The two women went slightly past the saiyans, and then stopped, with their backs toward the group.

"Why do you demand that we stop?" Mayari asked without looking at the group.

The leader of the small band of saiyans, named Reliesha, answered, "King Wasabi has ordered that all saiyans must check the face of anyone they pass, in case they are the humans. Why didn't the two of you know that?"

"We lost our radios in battle," the human lied. "But you must be able to see that we are saiyans. Look at our tails."

"Two saiyan women named Hashona and Stirfry were found wounded after being attacked by two strong humans. They said their tails were cut off by them. Our King believes that the humans are disguising themselves in order to infiltrate our city. "

Another saiyan from the group flew around the women to look at their faces, but the two women flew up a little bit so the saiyan would have to look toward the sun in order to see them.

"Is it them, Pumpkin?" Reliesha asked.

"I can't tell. The sun is in my eyes."

Reliesha became frustrated by how long this was taking and hollered, "Show your faces, or we will assume you are humans trying to hide!"

Seeing no way to hide their faces any longer, Althea subtly pointed her finger toward the horizon behind the saiyan group and whispered, "Bang."

A large explosion appeared far away, and all of the saiyans turned to look at it.

"Bang," Althea repeated, and a larger explosion appeared even farther away.

"That must be the intruders!" Pumpkin declared.

"Let's go after them!"

"You two are coming with us!" Releisha insisted suspiciously.

Althea and Mayari continued to angle themselves so their faces couldn't be seen, but they followed the saiyan group. Releisha looked at them repeatedly as they flew, giving the humans no chance to veer away.

"Nice work with those Death Beams," Mayari commented. "I could barely see them move."

"I hope no one else saw them."

"Fire one more. That should distract the saiyans long enough for us to get some distance."

Althea nodded, and fired another energy beam off, producing an even larger explosion, this time close up.

The saiyans stopped in their tracks, and gazed at the massive fireball in front of them. The women took this opportunity to fire up their kaiokens and make a rush for their final goal. Trees and fields went whizzing past them at a dazzling speed as they made as much ground as possible.

"They're gonna notice any second," Althea warned.

"I know. But they were going to notice anyway. Using our kaiokens, we should be able to make it in two minutes."

Several saiyans gathered around the explosion that Althea had left, but Reliesha noticed that the two suspicious-looking people weren't there any more.

"It was them all along!" she realized. She poked her ear quickly and called all of the saiyans. "This is Reliesha! I believe I have found the humans! They are a hundred kilometres East of Vegeta city, and appear to be headed straight toward it. They are using false tails and hiding their faces!"

The saiyans in the area chased the humans, but they were too slow to catch up. Mayari got nervous though when she saw saiyans coming at them from the city up ahead. Dozens of them began to lunge at the humans, but Mayari and Althea were quick enough to dodge all of the attacks, and keep on going.

They both got scared though when they saw energy orbs shooting up into the sky.

"Oh no!" Althea cried. "They're using false moons!"

"We have to hurry! Before they transform!"

The women raced as fast as they could, flying over a hundred saiyans that were all growing into giant apes underneath them. By now, they were only a minute away, but their time was up. Oozarus began to fly around them, and their number increased to several hundred.

The two humans trembled with fear.

"I think we're in trouble!" Althea wailed.

Mayari got control of herself though, and powered up two Destructo Disks. This made the saiyan hoard nervous. Althea pulled herself together and made a couple of disks too.

"HAAAA!" they cried out in unison, firing all four of their disks directly forward. The smarter saiyans lurched out of the way. Others got hit by the attack. One saiyan lost her tail. Another got a gash through the abdomen that almost cut him in half. The end result was a tunnel being created through the mass of apes, and the women charged through the small opening.

Emerging from the trap, they were immediately chased by creatures who were ten times faster than before, and were now able to keep up. An Oozaru did a flying kick at Althea, but she swerved out of the way. Mayari flew in between two saiyans, who smashed into each other.

An Oozaru ahead of them fired a beam out of his mouth that the women were barely able to dodge. Several saiyans behind them were injured by the attack.

"Use your brain you fool!" One of the injured saiyans cried out.

Althea felt like she was holding her friend back. "Mayari, you could go faster than me if you used your triple-kaioken!"

Flying into a valley to avoid energy blasts, the stronger human shouted back. "We're too close to Wasabi! I don't want him to sense my true power."

Althea was suddenly grabbed by an ape, but she quickly fired a Kamehameha out of her feet, hitting the ape in the gut hard enough to make him let go. Althea escaped his grasp, and fired another Kamehameha to push herself faster, catching up to her friend.

They flew over the gates of Vegeta City, and zipped between buildings to make themselves harder targets to catch. The Oozarus smashed the buildings apart as they tried to catch the little flies, but they were unable to stop them from reaching the central castle. They blasted through a wall, and headed for the largest power they could sense inside, which was in the throne room.

The throne room was very wide and high, with red carpet covering the entire floor. The stone walls were covered with royal emblems and paintings of the saiyan home world. Wasabi sat at the end, listening on his phone to the saiyans chasing the humans. He and his attendants were still in their small forms, being in a windowless room indoors.

Suddenly, the humans burst in, and a second later, the roof was smashed open. Rubble fell on top of everyone inside, but Wasabi sat still, as if nothing had happened.

Mayari rushed in front of him and shouted, "Wasabi! I need to speak to you!"

She was stomped on by an Oozaru, and was unable to say anything else. She managed to stay on her feet, holding up the foot on top of her, and threw the saiyan off to the side.

"Tri Beam!" Althea shouted, firing two beams at saiyans on one side.

"Kamehameha!" A blue beam swung around, knocking a few more saiyans away.

Mayari turned back to the King. "I just want to talk to you for a few minutes!"

She was kicked like a soccer ball, and flew across the room. She recovered in time to swerve around another ape, and got herself back in front of the King.

Wasabi stood up and shouted, "STOP!"

All of the saiyans immediately froze in mid-air, and looked at their King. Althea let her power go down, and tried to catch her breath. The King made sure everyone had stopped fighting, then he looked at Mayari.

"I will grant you a brief audience. But you trashed my castle, so whatever you came here to say had better be good."


	4. Chapter 4: Negotiation

The Oozarus hastily cleaned up some of the rubble in the area, and gave the King some space. Wasabi wore traditional saiyan body armour. It had a white mid-section, golden shoulder guards, and a blue shirt and pants underneath.

He was 70 years old, and it showed in his face, which had the beginnings of wrinkles on it. His hair was still black and spiky though, like most of those with saiyan blood. He had very dark blue eyes, almost black. But they were not focused on anything.

King Wasabi was extremely near-sighted, to the point of being legally blind. His vision was so blurry he was unable to make out any shape of any object in front of him, no matter how close. He had come to not rely on vision during battle, and instead focused on a very well-developed ability to sense ki.

Mayari made her demand to him. "I want you to call off the attack on the Earth."

Wasabi scoffed at this and smiled. "That's not going to happen."

Unphased, she made her plea. "For hundreds of years, saiyans and humans have coexisted together in peace. Humanity took you in when your planet was destroyed, and the saiyans have offered protection for us ever since. We have a long history of partnership together, and our symbiotic relationship should be preserved and cherished."

"All of that history has made us weak!" Wasabi retorted. "Saiyans do not rely on friendship and goodwill! Kakarot and Vegeta didn't become super-saiyans through peace and love, they did it through conquest! And our race has gotten too soft! It is time to break off our relationship with the weakling humans, and return to our saiyan roots by conquering worlds. There is no way we are going to change course just because of sentimentality."

Mayari was disappointed by this response, and shook her head. "In that case, if you don't call it off, my friend and I here will fight you all, to the death."

The King wasn't threatened by this. "There are only two of you. We would win, guaranteed."

"Yes, but how many of your saiyan underlings will die in the process? Althea and I should be able to kill hundreds of you before we run out of power."

"We're not really going to do that, are we?"

"Be quiet Althea."

Wasabi frowned. It was true that the two humans could cut off the tails of Oozarus, and fight well against a hoard of saiyans, if only for a little while. If they self-destructed, it was entirely possible that they could kill a very large number of them. If too many saiyans died in battle, they might reject Wasabi's philosophy of conquest. He decided it would be best to try to persuade the humans to give up their fight.

"Is it really worth it to throw your lives away," the saiyan asked, "when no humans are in danger?"

Mayari's head recoiled at this suggestion. "Ah, you've already killed its strongest warriors, and you said you plan on continuing the attack."

"But I don't plan on genociding the human race," Wasabi replied. "I merely plan to claim the Earth as saiyan territory, and rule it as a dictatorship. The humans will be allowed to live, so long as they do what I say."

"That's still slavery!" Althea exclaimed. "It's not quite as bad as genocide, but it's still horrible!"

Mayari wasn't relieved by this revelation at all. She knew that as soon as a rebellion was attempted, the humans would be killed anyway as punishment. Wasabi, meanwhile, was disappointed that his moderate position wasn't being appreciated.

"I can't call off an attack just because of a threat made by two people," Wasabi insisted. "It would make us look like cowards. We would be laughed at by other races. We need a home planet of our own to gain the respect of the galaxy."

"We could let you have a continent," Mayari offered. "That would allow you to expand your territory, without ruining the lives of the entire human race."

It was the best compromise Mayari could come up with. It would be miserable for the humans that had to leave their homes, but at least it would let most of humanity live freely. Wasabi paused for a moment, seriously considering the offer, but he felt that it just wasn't enough.

"Even taking a continent would be seen as defeat for a saiyan race that was on the cusp of conquering the entire world. I cannot accept the offer."

This pissed Mayari off, and she decided that compromise was off the table. "If I take three sensu beans," she thought, "and leave the rest for Althea, we should be able to blow up this entire city, and take out most of the powerful saiyans, and maybe someday the humans can find a way to beat the weaklings."

Wasabi was also considering his options. "If I can keep the weaker saiyans away, and bring the strong ones forward, we might be able to take these humans out without any deaths. But if they self-destruct, I'll die in the conflict. I am willing to make that sacrifice if I must, but will the saiyans stay true to their roots without my influence?"

Mayari put her dark thoughts aside, and tried one last tactic, de-escalation.

"I challenge you to a one-one-one fight," she declared, pointing her finger at the King. "If I win, you call off your attack, and leave the Earth. If you win, then Althea and I will give up peacefully."

Wasabi felt hope sweep through him, and his eyes widened. "Perhaps this would work. The outcome of any mass brawl would likely come down to the two of us anyway. Why bother with the others?" But he thought a little more. "I you lose, and you betray your word, and kill hundreds of saiyans, I will genocide all of humanity to punish you."

Mayari actually felt massively relieved, as the statement indicated Wasabi was serious. It was the first time she felt that the human race could really be saved.

"That condition is fine with me, since I'm going to keep my word."

"I have one other condition," Wasabi said. "you must beat me in my Oozaru form, and you will not be allowed to cut off my tail."

This would make Mayari's challenge harder, but not that much, since she could see that Wasabi kept his tail wrapped around his body, where it would be difficult to cut. She was probably going to have to defeat him in giant form anyway.

"If I have to cope with that condition," she replied, "then you have to allow me to take a sensu bean before our fight, and allow me to use kaiokens."

"Fine by me."

"Then we have an agreement."

The human and saiyan shook hands. As Mayari did this, she grew nervous about what she was doing. "I just picked a fight with the strongest saiyan in the world," she realized. "And I'm not actually sure how strong he is. This could go either way."

Wasabi felt anxious as well. "I've pinned the reputation of the entire saiyan race on the outcome of a single battle. I have to win this."

He then sensed around at his heavily damaged castle, and said, "I'd like to fight somewhere outside of this city, where we won't destroy any more buildings."

"Lead the way."

The King flew up into the air, and the two humans followed. Many of the saiyans did so as well. Wasabi didn't look at any of the false moons, and therefore prevented his transformation for the moment.

They flew at a leisurely pace for a few minutes, getting far away from Vegeta city.

"That was really good work in there," Althea said to her friend. "I thought we were going to die."

"A saiyan can never resist a challenge," Mayari replied with a smile. "I wasn't completely sure about a hybrid, but pure-blooded saiyans were very reliable in that department."

"And Wasabi is trying his hardest to be like them."

"I would have been completely confident back there if the stakes weren't so high."

"What will happen to us if you lose?" Althea wondered. "I doubt the saiyans will let us live."

"We'll probably be executed," she answered. "But if we act honourably, we might be able to convince the saiyans to let our loved ones leave the planet unharmed."

But when Althea thought about the human race being enslaved and abused by a group of saiyan overlords, she was filled with dread. "You have to win."

"I'm going to give it everything I've got."


	5. Chapter 5: An Oozaru Battle!

Wasabi landed in a large, green valley surrounded by mountains.

"Yes," he thought. "The tall, strong mountains here should contain the shock waves of our battle."

Mayari was uneasy with the battlefield. "Hills and valleys are exactly the environment I'm least experienced in," she thought, "and I'd be willing to bet Wasabi knows it."

Still, she figured she would still do alright. She had done some practice in this very mountain range before, just not very often. She would try to keep the battle in the air if possible.

"Give me a sensu bean," Mayari requested.

Althea handed her one, and it was promptly eaten. Mayari felt greatly rejuvenated by it. Some minor sore spots disappeared, and she was ready for battle. She stepped out into the open, and waited for Wasabi.

"Good luck," Althea whispered.

Wasabi walked away from his body guards, and faced the warrior before him.

"Everyone back away," he ordered. "Fly up the mountains somewhere. This is likely to get intense."

Obediently, the saiyans retreated, but they appeared to be confident about who would win as they did so.

"Wasabi's gonna squash that lady flat," one Oozaru remarked.

A few others laughed unpleasantly.

Althea kept her distance from that group, and picked a different mountain to watch from.

Wasabi held up his hand and created an energy orb. Mayari knew what it was, and waited patiently. He threw it into the air, directly above the valley they were in. The saiyan king knew there were other false moons up there, but they were all over Vegeta city, and wouldn't be visible if the fight got directly under the wrong mountain. He believed it was best to make an orb of his own that would shine over the entire arena.

He gazed up at the light. His vision may have been too blurry to see that the false moon was circular, but he could see that it was very bright in that direction, and the powerful rays went through his eyes, and triggered his transformation.

Like the other saiyans before him, Wasabi's body bulged in all direction. Hair grew all over him, and he transformed into a giant that towered over the small human beneath him. His special armour stretched to fit him as he got bigger, and it never tore. When his transformation was complete, he looked down at Mayari, who had her guard up, and was ready to spring into action.

Wasabi knew that despite being bigger than the woman, their power levels would be comparable when she charged up to full strength. He got into a battle stance, and watched for any hint of movement from his opponent.

Mayari patiently waited. She knew that a saiyan wouldn't be able to resist attacking if she just held still, and she didn't want to activate her kaioken until she absolutely needed to. Wasabi was aware of this, so he tried to think of a way to get things started without getting too close to her. He pointed two fingers at his opponent, then raised them up in the air.

"Eek!" she exclaimed.

A massive fireball blew up right underneath her feet, and she had to activate her kaioken to get enough speed to escape. Immediately, the giant ape was above her, and tried to pound her down into the glowing fireball below. Mayari grunted as she wrenched herself sideways, and dodged the attack.

Then the ape threw a series of punches, and Mayari rapidly maneuvered her arms to block and deflect them all. This looked odd, considering the huge size disparity between the two. From a distance, it looked like the Oozaru was dominating a defenseless human, and the other saiyans laughed triumphantly.

"Look! He's winning already!"

But then they saw Mayari dive downward to the saiyan's feet, and it was clear she was fine. Althea smiled with relief, but quickly became worried again as Wasabi's feet began swinging at his opponent. She dodged this way and that for a few seconds, but then she took a kick to the face. She flew back a few metres from the impact, but she wasn't hurt too bad.

She went back for more, and attempted to ram the ape in the gut. Wasabi flew up to avoid the attack. He then dodged a few more attempts at hitting his face by rapidly leaning left and right while retreating. Then Wasabi punched Mayari successfully once on the shoulder, then again with his other arm on her chest.

The woman went flying backward out of control. Suddenly, Wasabi teleported above her and smashed her down to the ground with two fists clenched together. Mayari's kaioken turned off, and she crashed to the ground. A big cloud of dust blasting through the valley.

Althea cried out, "Mayari, NO!"

But the saiyans looking on cheered.

"Good one!"

"All hail King Wasabi!"

Wasabi wasn't done, however. He flew up high, and prepared his next attack.

"I wonder how well your body can handle this," he said.

With that, he stuck one leg straight down and fell toward the Earth, attempting to flatten the injured human.

Still in the cloud, Mayari coughed up some dust, and knew it was time to turn it up. "Triple Kaioken!" she cried.

With that, she whisked away just in time to avoid getting crushed. She then quickly rammed Wasabi in the side of the head one way, then the other. Then she got in front of his belly and hollered, "Dodon Ray!"

A powerful beam of energy blasted out of her two fingers, and hit the saiyan hard. He flew backward, but Mayari got behind him and lifted the saiyan beast up high. She then fired another beam into his back, grabbed an ankle, and hurled the king into a mountain. He crashed into it, and disappeared inside.

"No way!" One of the saiyans watching exclaimed.

"Where did she learn to move like that?"

"Way to go Mayari!" the sole human yelled. "That's how it's done!"

Mayari powered down, and allowed her body to cool off a bit. She knew her attack had only done minor damage to her opponent, and she needed to pace herself.

"AAAAA!" Wasabi hollered angrily. He got up and sneered at the woman who had just hurt him. "How dare you hit me like that! You are going to pay!"

He charged back into the air before Mayari had recovered. She retreated backward as quickly as she could to try to buy a precious couple of seconds, then she went double-kaioken again. Wasabi did a spin kick, which she blocked, but she went flying away anyway. He then teleported behind her and she barely blocked a punch. They fought in the air for a while like this, then Wasabi disappeared.

Everyone went wide-eyed at this, except for Mayari, who landed on the ground, and scanned her surroundings suspiciously.

"He's dancing around me," she realized as her kaioken turned off. "How could something so huge move delicately enough to not even make a gust of wind?"

She shut her eyes and listened carefully, noticing she could hear quiet booms coming from the ground whenever Wasabi landed. She caught a glimpse of him briefly in the distance, but then he was gone again. Then he was right in her face and stomped on her head, driving her straight into the ground. He lifted his foot up and prepared to stomp her again, but this time it was Mayari who disappeared. Wasabi was the one to watch carefully as the human attempted the same quiet dancing around him, but she could only do this technique without her kaiokens, which made her slow enough for the king to spot her.

He charged after his opponent and punched her. Mayari went flying, but she felt emboldened. "My body's had time for another power burst," she calculated. Firing up to maximum, she charged at Wasabi and rammed him in the gut hard. She came around for another strike, but the ape managed to twist out of the way of the attack, making her go wide. She came around and did a flying kick into Wasabi's back, sending him crashing into another mountain. She she started powering up an energy attack.

"Ka...me...ha...me..." she chanted, as a blue energy ball grew in her hands. Then she pushed them forward. "HAAAAA!"

The saiyan onlookers gasped in horror as a large beam of energy lit up the sky. It overwhelmed Mayari's red power aura, and the glow of the false moon above as it slowly made its way toward the mountain. King Wasabi watched it fearfully, and stuck out his arms to try to catch the attack, but he wasn't strong enough to control it.

He managed to slightly alter its course so it hit the mountain just barely above his head, but then it exploded, and momentarily overwhelmed him with pain.

Half of the mountain shattered from the force of the impact, and the explosion temporarily blinded anyone who look at it. Even Mayari felt herself being blown back by the force of the blast. She powered down to let her muscles recover, and she looked intently at the devastation below.

Althea watched with great hope. "Did she do it?" she wondered. "Did she really defeat the king of the saiyans?"

Mayari knew that this was not the case though. She had seen that she did not make a direct hit, and she waited to see how much damage had been done. She was answered when the Earth began to shake, and a loud roar filled the valley.

The great Oozaru made wind blow all around him, clearing away the dust as he yelled with great anger.

"This can't be!" he bellowed furiously. "She's just a human! How could she be so strong! Even with her kaiokens I should be doing better than this."

"He's still in good shape," Mayari observed. "His body's durability is very impressive."

Fear began to take hold of Wasabi. "I could actually lose this," he realized. "I have to put everything I have into this battle because if I don't, the entire saiyan race will be humiliated."

With that thought, the large ape bent his knees and began to growl. Pebbles at his feet began to lift off the ground, wind blew away from him, and the ground started shaking again.

"Aaaaaa!" Wasabi growled quietly, "AAAAAAAA!" he went again, louder this time. "AAAAAAA!"

Mayari's heart sunk. "Oh no," she groaned. "He's powering up! I'm already giving it everything I've got!"

"AAAAAAAAAA!" It was now a very loud yell that echoed across the valley.

The wind became strong enough to blow down trees, and rip grass out of the ground. Althea and the saiyans had to struggle against it. The woman's hair blew back strongly, and she squinted against the gusts pushing her back. "Ugh!" she grunted. "It's so strong!"

The saiyans were more fearful. "How is he doing that?"

"AAAAAA!" Cracks began to travel along the ground, snow rolled down the mountains in avalanches, and a steady earthquake rocked the entire region. Mayari watched fearfully as she sensed the saiyan warrior's power increasing.

"It just keeps going!" she remarked fretfully. "This is ridiculous!"

One more mighty yell, and it appeared to be over. Wasabi looked at the scared human above him and snarled once more.

Mayari was filled with fear. "Oh great! What am I supposed to do now?"

Wasabi heard this comment, and answered, "It looks like you're beginning to realize how outclassed you are Mrs. Smith. Even with your kaiokens, you won't be able to match me when I fight at maximum power."

"If that energy I'm sensing is real, then he might be right," she thought.

* * *

Power Levels:

King Wasabi: (Oozaru, before power-up): 130,000

King Wasabi (Post power-up): 160,000


	6. Chapter 6: Full Power Saiyan

Wasabi launched himself into the air, and Mayari instinctively went straight to full power, knowing she couldn't fool around with such a huge force. She dodged his first attack, and the ape went sailing past her. He quickly turned around and they began pounding away at each other, zipping through the air rapidly.

Everyone watching was stunned, most of them unable to even see what was going on. All they saw were explosions scattering across the sky unpredictably. A few of the stronger Oozarus could see blurs racing this way and that.

"Th - they're amazing!" One of the apes remarked.

"I had no idea an Oozaru could move that fast," Althea thought.

Mayari struggled greatly against the immense speed and strength of her opponent now. She always seemed to be half a step behind, and she was barely avoiding hits, even with her triple- raging from within her.

Suddenly, one partially blocked punch made her spin in mid-air, and the Filipino warrior lost control. She got punched hard in the back, then stomped into the ground. When Wasabi floated back into the air, her power had turned off.

The saiyans cheered as they saw their leader hovering triumphantly. The great Oozaru smiled confidently.

The dust cleared enough for Mayari to be visible, picking herself up. Her entire body hurt from the impact of those last two hits, but she grit her teeth, and stared at Wasabi defiantly.

"Are you ready to give up?" the saiyan asked. "I have already proven that I am the superior fighter. The only question is how much do you want to get hurt?"

Mayari knew her odds of winning this fight had plummeted down as far as her body had just moments before, but she wasn't prepared to give up yet. "You may be faster and stronger than me," she responded with heavy breath, "but only a little. I've still got fighting chances."

Clenching her fists together, the courageous human summoned her red aura back, and flew into the air to attack again. She threw a punch at Wasabi's giant face, but he disappeared just before she made contact. She looked around for a moment, and found the ape hovering directly above her. She flew up and tried several times to ram the large creature, but Wasabi dodged each time.

"Kamehameha!" she shouted.

Wasabi slapped the attack away.

Knowing her kaioken wouldn't last much longer, Mayari pointed with both of her arms and shouted, "Dodon Ray!"

A series of quick, powerful blasts started coming from both of her pointed hands, sending a barrage of energy attacks. Wasabi used his superior speed to dodge every one of them. Undeterred, Mayari continued firing at him wherever he went. But the blasts just went sailing across the valley every time, causing hundreds of explosions on the mountains around them.

The saiyan spectators had to leap out of the way of one blast, many of them piling on top of each other in the moment of panic. They were all shocked by the large crater that was left behind.

Mayari kept firing as long as she could, but she soon lost her triple-kaioken, going down to a double. Her hands were burning hot from the exertion of firing all those attacks. Even her heat-resistant gloves couldn't protect her from the consequences of that many attacks.

"Is that the best you can do?" Wasabi asked. "You may be strong enough to destroy mountains, but that isn't strong enough to beat me."

"He's gonna go on the offensive now," she realized dreadfully. "If I stay really close to him, up around his shoulders, he shouldn't be able to hit me as hard."

Wasabi did indeed go on the attack, and with her double-kaioken, Mayari had no hope of coming close to matching his speed, but by grabbing on to the saiyan's neck, she made it difficult for Wasabi to get a good hit on her. His bulky arms had difficulty bending enough to hit there, and when he tried to smack her, his movement was slow enough for her to jump to the other side of his neck. She managed to do this a few times until the ape started rubbing both of his hands around simultaneously, forcing her to go out into the open air, where she quickly got elbowed hard and went flying across the sky.

After several seconds, she managed to get control, and stopped herself. She looked back where she had come from, only to see a huge white beam of energy coming her way. Mayari just barely managed to dodge it, and she cringed as she realized how strong the beam was.

A few seconds later, a gigantic explosion was made in the distance that lit up the entire sky, and was so loud it hurt her ears. A massive mushroom cloud emerged, and Mayari stared at it in terror.

"That would have killed me!" she realized.

"Ha ha ha ha!" a loud voice laughed behind her. Mayari turned and saw the King just centimetres away from her. "That mushroom cloud over there is what you'll look like in a few minutes. Unless I decide to simply squash you flat."

Mayari forced herself to not dwell on her close call with death the moment before, and focused instead of what she needed to do next.

"Your Oozaru form makes you a powerful fighter," Mayari admitted. "But I'm starting to notice it has some drawbacks. You're not as flexible as your smaller form, and if I take advantage of that, I can make up for my slower speed."

"Ooh," Wasabi answered, unconcerned, "it sounds like you've got a strategy! Too bad it's not going to save you!"

"Triple Kaioken!"

Charged up, the determined woman raced under Wasabi's armpit, and fired a quick Dodon ray into his upper back. He ignored the pain of the blast and spun around to punch her, but she quickly got behind him again and punched him as hard as she could. Still ignoring the damage, Wasabi spun around while flying up, attempting to knee his opponent.

He was very fast, but Mayari managed to barely dodge it, feeling the saiyan's leg hairs brushing past her. She kicked just underneath Wasabi's knee, then slammed herself into his other leg, giving him bruises on both.

Growling, Wasabi clenched his legs together, only to feel another energy blast hitting him in the back, then a physical attack. He was forced downward hard and spun out control for a while, but he managed to land on his large feet. He made a crater in the ground, and struggled to not collapse from all the pain he was in.

"This is actually better than I thought," Mayari remarked, smiling. "Not only are you inflexible in that form, but you also don't seem very experienced in it. I'm outfighting you."

"You tail-less loser!" Wasabi yelled. "The Oozaru form is perfection! It has no weaknesses!"

With that, he lifted a boulder off the ground, and hurled it so hard that it whipped across the sky almost instantaneously. Mayari zipped sideways, dodging it, but was frightened by the attack. With wide eyes, she gasped, "I barely saw that in time!"

Wasabi used some limited telekinetic ability to make several boulders lift off the ground, and he began launching them at Mayari rapid-fire. She dodged repeatedly, but was unwilling to go to full power for this. With a double-kaioken, she dodged the attacks. As fast as they were, air-resistance was still a factor on the physical projectiles, and it slowed them down enough for the fighter to handle.

"Is this what he's using instead of energy attacks?" she wondered. "He is biased in favour of these displays of raw strength."

Althea watched thoughtfully, unsure what the outcome would be. "They're in a stalemate here," she calculated. "Mayari can dodge the attacks, but she can't get close to Wasabi where his attacks will move faster. It might come down to who gets tired first."

No one ever found out how that would have ended though, as Wasabi got frustrated with his attacks missing. He thought for a few moments and came up with another idea.

"You may be nimble when you're up close," Wasabi said. "But if you don't get a chance to get near me, I can still dominate!"

The king blasted off the ground and body-checked Mayari, who was knocked sideways. Wasabi then flew away, giving her no chance to counter-attack. He came around and rammed her again.

Summoning her full power, Mayari started to fly away from Wasabi, trying to buy some time to think of something. He was faster than her though. Desperately, Mayari made a sharp turn at the last moment, and Wasabi's massive body was unable to match her turn. She kicked him in the face and zipped away.

Wasabi gave chase again, and was again outmaneuvered, receiving a head-butt in the stomach.

"AAA!" he yelled. "It's like trying to catch a fly! She's too small!"

But Mayari's kaioken wore off again, and she was soon smacked hard in the side of the head, sending her crashing through the top of a mountain and out the other side.

"That's your weakness," Wasabi concluded. "I have to hang on until your power wears off, and then go in for the strike!"

Beginning to lose hope again, Mayari grimaced and braced herself. "This is exactly why I don't like counting on the kaioken."

Regardless, she powered up again as the giant ape came at her. As soon as her power was on, Wasabi backed away, forcing the human to chase him. By going in a straight line, he could comfortably stay ahead of Mayari, while forcing her to be ready for a counter-attack at any moment. Before long, her triple-kaioken wore off.

"Yes!" Wasabi exclaimed. "This is my chance to strike!"

He charged forward and swung a punch, only to see a blur of red slam him in the face.

Groaning through the pain, Wasabi wondered, "What was that? How did she get her power boost back so quickly?"

It was desperation on Mayari's part. She forced the kaioken back on despite her body not being ready for it. She could feel tremendous strain being put on her from the super-charged energy, but it was the only way to avoid getting clobbered.

Feeling stretched everywhere, Mayari rammed the ape a dozen times rapidly, and blasted a giant Kamehameha at him. Wasabi howled in pain, but rolled off the attack, coming right back at the woman.

"She can't keep it on forever! I just have to keep attacking!"

Indeed, the kaioken turned off a second time, but Mayari had to re-activate it immediately to block a powerful kick from the saiyan. She cried out loud as she felt a massive gash appear in her arm, the result of excessive strain on her body. But she managed to dive down and hit Wasabi's leg, making him howl in pain.

"They're both going into overdrive!" one of the saiyans shouted.

"How much can they take?"

Mayari got grabbed with her aura gone, and turned it on again as she was squeezed inside Wasabi's giant hands. She endured a strange pain from having her bones feeling crushed, but also feeling like they were being blown apart by her energy upsurges. She fired dozens of Dodon Rays into Wasabi's body with her tiny hands that had enough freedom to wriggle at her sides.

Both combatants took damage from the mutual attacks, but Wasabi took by far the most.

"My hands don't feel hot when I use this attack any more," Mayari noticed. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Wasabi's grip weakened from all of the energy attacks, and Mayari kept blasting away for several seconds. She then escaped from his grasp, and tried to throw a punch, but realized her right arm wouldn't move any more. Neither would her left leg. She punched with the one arm that did work, but was then blinded by strands of brown hair.

"Those are mine," she realized.

The kaioken's strain was making all of her hair fall out, and she developed a bald patch on her head. The pain in her body was getting more intense, but she kept her super-charged state up, knowing that it was the only way to keep the advantage.

Wasabi threw several kicks and punches, but Mayari dodged them all by flying around him quickly. Then she slammed into him several more times. She hit him in the belly, in the face, in the back, and anywhere else she could get a shot. She grabbed him by the arm and hurled him away, finally allowing her power to turn off.

In agony, tears streamed from her cheeks and she began to fall to the ground, unwilling to make the effort to stay in the air.

"Oh my god, it hurts so much!" she whimpered. "I don't know if I can do that again!"

But she realized she would have to, as Wasabi caught himself, and began to power up an energy beam.

Mayari coughed up blood, and took a glance at her burning body. The gloves on her hands had burnt away, and the skin had turned black. She was bleeding from her stomach. "When did that happen?" she wondered.

He left leg was twisted unnaturally, and there was a hole in her boot where one of her toes had blasted out.

"Another triple could kill me," she realized.

But she had no choice but to fire back as Wasabi launched a Break Cannon attack out of his mouth.

"Kamehameha!" she yelled, activating her triple-kaioken again.

She felt her right kneecap shatter, and felt like her head almost popped off her neck. Her vision turned red from blood somewhere on her face, but she forced her energy attack forward.

The two beams collided in mid-air, with Mayari having the edge.

"Thank goodness," she thought. "I've weakened him enough to have the upper hand. But I don't know if I can keep it up!"

The force from the two powerful beams caused mountain tops to explode all across the battlefield, and powerful hurricane-force winds terrified all of the onlookers.

"Hang on Mayari!" Althea shouted.

The collision of the two beams moved toward Wasabi, who grew fearful as it got closer. "No! I should be stronger than her!" he gasped.

He continued to put everything he had into his attack, knowing that Mayari's power could run out at any second. Mayari grit her teeth and held it together though. The thought of giving up occurred to her at one moment, but then she remembered the Earth, and all her loved ones that were at stake, and she knew she had to keep going, whether it hurt or not.

The Kamehameha engulfed Wasabi, and he screamed, "NO-O-O-O-O-O!"

He felt chunks of flesh blasting off his body. His energy was heavily drained, and he crashed into a mountain before the energy exploded.

Mayari watched from the ground, as the kaioken wore off again. She couldn't see that her Kamehameha had hit, as she had lost her vision sometime during the attack. But she sensed it easily.

"His power faded to almost nothing," she realized.

She sunk to one knee, but with both of her knees broken, she promptly fell face-first to the ground.

The saiyans looked at the two fighters.

"Who won?" they wondered.

"Are they both unconscious?"

Many of them, along with Althea, floated into the air, and cautiously approached to get a better look. Neither fighter moved, even though they were both alive. They were both overwhelmed by pain.

Mayari coughed up blood again, and sobbed a couple of times. "I just want to die!" she groaned. "But I have to finish him."

It took all the will power she had, but Mayari managed to float into the air. Very slowly, and with very little energy remaining, she crept toward Wasabi. The saiyans got out of the way, all of them shocked by how horrifically mutilated the woman's body was. Blood was dripping out of her steadily, and her face was very pale. Her head was completely bald now, showing smooth brown skin except for all the bruises.

She wobbled in the air, and appeared to be dizzy, but she was still doing better than Wasabi, who couldn't even move. There were no kaiokens any more. Even a mild power surge would kill her for sure at this point. But with the small amount of energy she had left, Mayari flew forward.

She got herself over top of the ape, and groaned. "Kamehameha."

A small, weak energy beam shot out of the one hand of hers that still worked. The ape groaned as it slammed into him.

"Ha! … Ha! … Ha!"

Another beam hit him. And another, and another.

Positioning herself directly above his head, Mayari allowed herself to fall, and began to charge up her final attack. "Ka...me...ha...me..."

"Wait!" Wasabi choked out. "I concede defeat!"

"What?" The injured woman held her energy back and crashed onto Wasabi's snout. Both of them groaned from the pain of the impact.

"I... surrender," the saiyan repeated. "That Kamehameha would have killed me."

The world was spinning around Mayari, and all she could say in response was, "Good."

Wasabi felt humiliated. "I want to die right here," he groaned.

"Yeah, me too."

"I would have let you kill me, but the saiyans need a leader until they rediscover themselves."

Althea and the other saiyans landed in front of the two warriors.

"Your majesty," one of the apes asked. "Are you really conceding to a human?"

"Yes," he answered. "She is a tremendous warrior, and I was beaten by her."

"Give me a sensu bean," Mayari begged her friend. "I'm gonna pass out."

Althea reached into her bag, and pulled out one bean, feeding it to her. Mayari's wounds rapidly healed, and she rolled off the ape underneath her. She sat on the ground, still feeling emotionally exhausted, even if she was physically fine now.

Althea pulled out another bean. "You take one too," she said, offering it to Wasabi.

"I don't need one," he responded.

"You're going to bleed to death," she insisted. "The battle's over, and you just said you needed to stay alive."

The saiyan thought about this for a few seconds, then he nodded. "Fine, but I can't move my arms. Throw it into my mouth."

She did so, and the saiyan cringed as he swallowed the little bean. Very quickly, his wounds healed, and he got up energetically.

"This is amazing!" he exclaimed. "I feel stronger than ever!"

He looked at Mayari on the ground at his feet. "With the power boost I got after recovering from these wounds, I could easily beat you now!"

Mayari's heart sunk. "You wouldn't dare!"

Wasabi laughed. "Don't worry. We made a deal. If I killed you now, word would get out, and the universe say that the saiyans are a bunch of cowards. No, true saiyans are a terrifying force to be reckoned with, but they are honourable. We will leave you alone, and head into space to find a new planet that we can call home."

"But Majesty!" one of the other saiyans exclaimed. "If we leave the Earth, the other races out there will think we are weak, and they'll laugh at us."

Wasabi faced the other Oozarus, and declared, "Whatever planet laughs at us the hardest will be the first to be attacked!"

He pointed his arms at the sky, and made all of the false moons turn off. He, and all the other saiyans shrunk back to their humanoid form. Wasabi still looked well-dressed in his armour, even if it had holes and cracks in it. The other saiyans looked more awkward, being in nothing but their underwear.

"Prepare the spaceships!" Wasabi ordered. "We will leave this planet together, and begin our search for a new world."

Obediently, the saiyans followed their leader, and flew away.

The two humans were left behind, spending a moment looking at the devastated battleground. The once-green valley was now brown after all the dirt had been blown away. Hundreds of trees had been blasted down, and many were now partially buried. Entire mountains had disappeared, making it a more open area than before.

"At least the damage was contained," Mayari consoled herself.

The two of them flew up into the sky, and followed the saiyans from a safe distance, making sure that they kept their word.


	7. Chapter 7: Honouring the Dead

Five days after the saiyan attack, dozens of spaceships had left the solar system, taking thousands of saiyan-human hybrids away from the Earth. The only ones that stayed behind were some tail-less outcasts, and few hybrids that had never identified with their saiyan side, and had never trained as fighters.

The martial arts community had arranged a ceremony for the human fighters that had been targeted and killed. People from all around the world had gathered in Castlegar city, the location of the Earth Martial Arts Tournament, in order to honour the fallen. The families of the dead, along with many weaker fighters that had been spared, were all there, along with Mayari, Althea, and their husbands.

Thirty-five large pictures were raised high with candles lit underneath with a power level above 8000 had been targeted.

Mayari and Althea stood together dressed in black dresses, and Mayari wore a black hat to cover her head, which had only regrown a faint, brown fuzz in the days since her battle. She listened to the sombre speeches quietly, and grieved for the victims, several of whom she had counted as friends.

It was the first real chance she or Althea had had to properly deal with the deaths. They had been too busy confronting the saiyans, responding to the media and the government, and preparing for this day's event to have sufficient time to really think about it.

"I could have been one of them so easily," Althea thought. "If I had been alone, I wouldn't have been able to cut off their tails, and I would be another one of those pictures."

Mayari thought about how much she would miss them all, and also realized that there would be virtually no one for her to compete with in tournaments any more, at least on Earth.

"They might just shut the tournaments down after this," she thought.

Both of them were brought to tears during the service, but as the ceremony came to an end, they felt able to say a final goodbye to the fallen, and moved on.

Althea asked her friend, "What do we do now? It's not like we need to train for the next tournament any more at our power levels."

Mayari had already thought about that, and she replied, "The Earth is in danger, the greatest danger it has been in for hundreds of years."

This surprised Althea, and she recoiled a bit. "What do you mean? I don't sense any large powers anywhere in the solar system."

"Exactly. Ever since the saiyans came to the Earth, we have had dozens of powerful warriors that could defend our planet from invading forces. But with the saiyans gone, and the strongest humans killed off, you and I are the only ones left that can protect the planet, and we will be until a new generation of human fighters can be raised."

"I hadn't thought of that," Althea responded uncomfortably. She realized how exposed they were for the first time.

"It's only a matter of time before the alien races out there sense our vulnerability, and attack us. There are creatures far more powerful than Oozarus out there, and if they were to come at us right now, we would be absolutely defenceless."

"We're going to have train more fighters like us, as fast as possible."

"That will take at least a few years," Mayari said. "In the meantime, we've got to train ourselves. Our power levels just aren't high enough to face the threats that could come after us tomorrow, or next week. I'm going to start training my body to handle more kaiokens, and I'd like you to work with me."

Althea nodded. "We could obtain ten times our current strength if we push it as far as old warriors did."

"Maybe even more. And I think we're going to need it."

The two women flew away together, and began to plan their training.

* * *

At that same moment, the saiyan spaceships left the solar system. Many of the warriors inside were worried about their reputations after leaving the Earth. But they had nothing to fear, because no alien civilization ever dared to laugh at the saiyans.


	8. Chap 8: The Meeting in Mayari's Mansion

Mayari, Althea, and both of their husbands got together in Mayari's mansion to look for more ways to defend the Earth. Her mansion was huge! It had a swimming pool, three massive, extra-sturdy gyms with tonnes of exercise equipment, and enough guest rooms to hold a dozen people. There was also a museum filled with artifacts from the old warriors, including diaries, letters, tournament records, and design specs for the gravity chamber they used, among many other items.

Today they were sitting in the living room. Althea and Liam sat together on a soft, black sofa with a rectangular, glass table in front of them. On the other side of the table were Ethan and Mayari on a second couch.

The two men had already found out that their wives would be training hard to become better fighters, but they knew that two warriors would never be enough to protect the planet.

"We were lucky to have been attacked by saiyans first," Mayari pointed out. "We were able to take advantage of their code of honour, and only had to defeat their king. If it had been an army of Nameks, or Frost Demons, we would have needed to kill every single one of them."

Althea nodded in agreement. "The two of us on our own can handle a small force, but if an army of thousands comes our way again, we'll be overwhelmed."

The government has its army of robots," Ethan noted. "Enough of those could take out the weaker warriors for you."

Mayari grimaced though. "They're not strong enough. They're great against most humans, but there are too many alien races out there that wouldn't even be hurt by those contraptions. The strongest military robots barely reach a power level of 10,000."

Ethan thought about this quietly for a moment, then he asked, "What if they were stronger?"

Mayari shook her head pessimistically. "There's no chance. The engineers that build them have a flawed understanding of ki, and they'll never get past 10,000 until they change their views."

The four humans in the room were some of the only people on Earth that understood the spiritual nature of ki, and that was the main reason the two women had been able to achieve higher power levels than anyone else. Nearly everyone else treated ki as being similar to electricity, and could only manipulate small energy levels as a result.

Ethan understood Mayari's pessimism, but he pressed his point. "The funding for those engineers all comes from the Ministry of Defence, and we've never made a serious effort to get through to them. If we can convince them to put some research funding into your views of ki, they could make a major breakthrough in robotics."

Mayari felt uncomfortable, thinking it was a long shot. "That would solve our problems right there if it worked," she admitted cautiously. "But convincing the scientists will be really hard. Their theory _does_ work for low energy levels, which to weaklings like them seems really high. But I guess it might be worth a try."

Ethan smiled reassuringly. "I'm a good salesman," he reminded her. "If we work on a pitch together, I think we'd have a pretty good chance."

"If you can convince them," Althea jumped in, "maybe you could get them to start training their soldiers to use ki the right way too."

"That's another thing we need," Mayari agreed. "Robots take a long time to design and build, but if we had a Martial Arts school that taught ki properly to hundreds or thousands of students, I'm sure we could get some fighters as strong as Althea and I in a few months."

"That still leaves us exposed for quite a while," Liam remarked. "There is a simple way we could beef up the Earth's defences right away. Just hire some mercenaries to protect us."

Althea didn't like the sound of that. "Mercenaries are really expensive, and you can't trust them."

"But in the short term," Mayari responded thoughtfully, "they could be really useful."

"We could pay for them ourselves," Ethan added, "for a while at least. It would really drain us financially, but we could do it."

"I'm worried about advertising our vulnerability though," the warrior continued. "Right now, the Earth has a reputation for being a planet you don't want to mess with. The super-saiyans defeated the scariest monsters in the universe, and I just defeated the Oozaru king. Saiyans from Earth are probably conquering a planet out there somewhere right now, which actually makes us look tough. If we play it cool, it could be a few years before any race thinks about attacking us. But if we shop around for mercenaries, aliens will realize that we're scared, and that will make us a target."

"So you'd rather we just stayed quiet."

"Yes," she answered, feeling regretful about it.

"What if we were to just pick a small number of powerful warriors?" Liam asked. "If we're careful about who we talk to, we can keep Earth's predicament quiet, and just say you want a little backup in case the saiyans come back."

"One or two more warriors could help a lot," Althea said. "If they have a comparable power level to us, then that would help us to take on a modest army."

Mayari knew that Liam worked at an immigration firm, helping wealthy newcomers adapt to life in their chosen country. He would be well-suited to finding an alien that would be willing to live on Earth, and he was a good judge of character.

"If you're careful about it," she said slowly, "then I'm willing to take a small risk."

Liam suddenly had a pang of anxiety as he realized what he had accidentally volunteered for. "If _I'm_ careful about it? Do you want me to do this all on my own?"

"You are the best suited for the job," Althea told him. "And it sounds like the rest of us are going to be busy."

"I'll help you a little bit when I can," Mayari said. "I can't train all the time, so whenever I'm taking breaks, I'll help you select candidates."

At that point, the four friends felt like they all had their hands full. The two men left to start research for their respective projects, while the women flew away to attempt some times-four-kaiokens.


	9. Chapter 9: The Ministry of Defence

**Chapter 9: The Ministry of Defence**

Three weeks after they started, Mayari and Ethan were in Victoria city to make their case to the government. They stood inside a large room with a polished, wooden floor, and beige walls. Ten members of the Earth Defence committee were at large desks arranged in two concentric semi-circles, with several aides attending to them.

The husband and wife were not able to use visual aides in their presentation, but they had been permitted to distribute small amounts of literature that the councilors could review while watching. When it was time to begin, a woman wearing a black suit and a red tie to go with her long, red hair made a few opening remarks to get the meeting started, then asked Ethan and Mayari to begin their presentation.

"Thank you," Ethan said. "As you are all aware, the Earth suffered a brief war between humans and saiyans that resulted in the departure of the entire saiyan race, the deaths of many of the human race's strongest warriors, and also the destruction of many of our robots. Our defences are in need of repair, and my wife and I are both pleased to see that this council has been open to hearing a wide range of options for how best to improve our security."

Mayari waited quietly while her husband made the request for funding for a ki-based defence program. He was the salesman, and had done most of the work for the presentation. Her role would be restricted to describing her research into ki.

"With 50 humans strong enough to fight Oozarus after one year, we would be in pretty good shape to handle anything the universe throws at us," Ethan predicted, wrapping his part up. "But I'm sure you're all wondering how we expect to achieve such an incredible feat. Well, that all comes down to our understanding of ki. And my wife, the strongest human alive, will explain it for you."

Mayari felt the pressure, knowing that her presentation had to be perfect. She felt a little nervous about giving a speech that she knew would make her look like a quack to many of the people in the room. But she had to try it for the sake of the Earth. She stepped forward and began to speak.

"Thank you, Ethan." She then faced the committee members. "Humans, aliens, and robots all possess the ability to fly without jets or rockets, to achieve feats of super-human strength, and the ability to fire beam attacks. On Earth, and many other worlds, these abilities are explained under the Special Electron Theory, which has as its central premise the notion that electrons in carbon atoms are capable of unusual, and highly energetic behaviour when they are stimulated by the proper assortment of photons and neutrinos.

"But this theory is conceptually wrong. The energy for these unusual abilities don't come from electrons, but from the soul, and this energy is call ki."

A couple of the councilors in the room snickered at this statement, which Mayari had known would happen. She waited patiently for it to end.

"Do we have to listen to the rest of this?" The question came from a 60-year-old woman that Mayari knew. Her name was Hannah Walker. She was dressed formally, wearing a suit like the others, and a blue tie to signify her membership in the Conservative Party. She sat in the back row of tables at the very end. "Our time is limited, and we have to focus on our serious options."

"Mayari G. Smith is the most gifted user of Special Electrons on the planet," the red-haired Minister of Defence responded, "and we would be foolish to not hear her out."

"This is a waste of time," the Conservative grumbled.

The scene quieted down, and Mayari was able to continue. "This isn't something I dreamed up on a whim," she said. "I developed my ki theory based on research of historical documents and artifacts, as well as observations of alien races. The old super-saiyans found that their energies would fluctuate depending on their level of rage, which is an emotional state that has nothing to do with neutrinos.

"Diary entries in multiple languages from all over the world report a psychic phenomena where people heard the voice of a famous martial artist named Hercule asking them to raise their arms and give their energy to him. The people who did this were left exhausted, and business activity slowed noticeably that day. Electron theory does not explain this, but if one accepts Vegeta's description of the spirit bomb, it makes much more sense. The soul energy was combined from everyone in the world to build an attack with a power level higher than a billion, which was needed to defeat a demonic enemy."

Mayari then spent several minutes describing most of what she knew about ki, and how this deeper understanding could be used to increase a human's power level tremendously in a matter of months.

"These are the techniques that I used to make myself strong enough to beat King Wasabi, and they are also the techniques that we need to use in order to make up for the absence of our saiyan protectors. I hope you will understand the importance of shifting our perspective on so-called special electrons, and I will be happy to answer any questions you may have."

Mayari and Ethan fielded a few easy questions about the nature of their proposed facilities, and expected costs. But then the old woman who had interrupted earlier got her turn to speak.

"Councillors," she began. "Ms. Smith has just spent several minutes trying to convince you that there is something wrong with Special Electron Theory, but you are listening to a woman who dropped out of her university biology program! I know this, because I was the professor who tried to teach her the subject at the time, and the one that she argued with for weeks on end before she called it quits.

"Ms. Smith's understanding of biology is poor and incomplete, and if she had completed her degree, she would know how horrifically wrong her arguments are."

An old anger flared up in Mayari, and she blurted out. "I quit because I wasn't going to waste four years of my life learning garbage!"

Ms. Walker ignored the statement, and continued. "Special Electron theory is supported by scientists because it works. Those of you who flew to work today did so thanks to implants in your bodies that were developed by Electron scientists. Our robots have achieved power levels of a staggering 10,000 thanks to this theory. Ms. Smith is dismissing all of this on the evidence of Hercule, a man who was loved at the time, but is now known to have been a fraud. "

Mayari had known that this would be coming, and she tried to argue. "If I could respond to some of those points, I understand that the electron perspective works for low power levels, but that is only because the technological techniques that scientists have been using represent an indirect channeling of soul-energy, accidentally allowing them to control small amounts of ki. But this can't be pushed beyond power levels of 10,000."

The biology professor continued her argument though. "It is the opinion of many in the scientific community that Ms. Smith has alien cybernetic implants that give her a high power level. All she would have to do to convince scientists that she is right is to allow herself to be tested for implants. Her suspicious refusal to do this is a failure on her part to even try to meet scientific standards of evidence."

"That testing would require invasive surgery!" Mayari objected.

"We don't have time or resources to investigate fringe ideas. We need a science-based approach to military research, and Ms. Smith's 'ki' doesn't make the cut."

Mayari felt frustrated by the arguments, and tried to explain her distrust for biologists who had, in her opinion, been bribed and corrupted by the carbon robotics industry to ignore views like hers, but her former professor was very good at the art of debate, and made it very difficult for Mayari to persuade the council.

In the end, there was a vote on the issue, and the Minister declared that, "Although we are all grateful for Ms. Smith's bravery during the saiyan attack, and we all admire her strength, we will not be spending limited resources on an unscientific idea. Our defence spending will go instead into more advanced carbon-robotics to develop the best military bots in the galaxy."

"It won't work," Mayari told them bluntly.

But it was too late. The government had rejected her case, and she left the building feeling disappointed, but not particularly surprised.

"This isn't the end of the story," Ethan reminded her. "Our presentation was all on camera, and we can still take our case to the general public."

Mayari knew it was true, but their backup plan, even if it worked, wouldn't be anywhere near as good as what they could have achieved if the government had joined forces with them. "We'll wait one day for the media to digest what happened here," she said. "Then we'll release our Z-Tube video."

* * *

The next day, a video went viral on computer networks around the world.

"Want to tap into your inner power? Do you want to unlock your incredible potential? My name is Mayari G. Smith, the strongest fighter in the world, and I am going to tell you how I achieved a power level of 250,000, more than 20 times stronger than the greatest military robots. I want to share this with you, because the world is in danger, and I need some brave individuals to learn everything I know, and acquire the awesome power of ki.

"Ki is the true power behind military mechanoids. It is the truth that the robotics industry doesn't want you to know, because if word got out that humans can become stronger than their flimsy toys, their profits will disappear. It is the truth that the military is oblivious to, because they've been bamboozled by corporate lobbyists.

"But in an isolated ghost town in the mountains, I will soon be opening up a school where you can learn how to acquire enough power to blow up the moon!"

* * *

That is how Mayari's video began, narrated by the amateur scholar herself. Following a script written by her husband, and translated into dozens of different languages, she laid out similar evidence to what she had presented to the government the day before. It was a pitch to try to start up a training school without government funding, and over the objections of mainstream scientists. The video had the edge of a conspiracy theory, but everything in it was well-documented, and proven by Mayari's increasing feats of strength.

Due to her fame, most of the world saw the video, but most dismissed it as nonsense. Her views on ki had been known before, and scientists were quick to argue against it, especially Hannah Walker, who made many media appearances providing "factual" data.

But still, there were many who were persuaded, and a small number that were willing and able to make the commitment to join her school, and train in a remote location with only limited contact with the rest of the world. Mayari and her friends were all pleased as potential students began to apply for enrollment.


End file.
